ting their independence of civil
control the clerical order had been conscious that they could not stand
alone, and had attached themselves with special devotion to their
Spiritual Sovereign at Rome. They might complain of annates and
first-fruits and other tributes which they were made to pay; but the
Pope's support they knew to be essential to the maintenance of their
professional privileges; and in any contest which might arise they were
certain to be found on the side of the Holy See. The hero of the
imagination of every English priest was Becket of Canterbury. In theory he
regarded the secular prince as ruling only by delegation from the Supreme
Pontiff, and as liable in case of contumacy to be deposed. In case of
quarrel between the clergy and the State the enormous influence of the
Church was pledged to the order and to its chief at Rome.

The spiritualty were already exasperated by the clipping of their claws in
the last session. From the Bishop of Rochester, who represented clerical
opinion in its most accentuated form, from great ladies, and from a party
of the nobles with whom, as Catherine's friends, he mainly associated,
Chapuys had heard unanimous censures of the King's conduct. These persons
told him that the whole nation agreed with them, and certainly the
opposition of a body so powerful as the clergy was by itself formidable.
Before it came to war, therefore, with the Pontiff, the King had prepared
his measures to disarm the Pontiff's legionaries. To clip their claws was
not enough. Their mouths had to be held with bit and bridle. Parliament,
after repeated prorogations, was opened at last in January. Convocation,
which was called simultaneously, was put formally in possession of a fact
which had appeared on the first rumour of it incredible--that the whole
body of the clergy lay under Praemunire for having recognised Cardinal
Wolsey's legation and the Papal Bull by which it was instituted. It was an
intimation that the old English laws were awake again. The clergy were
subjects of the Crown, not of the Pope, and to impress the fact upon their
minds they learnt that legally their property was forfeited, that they
would obtain their pardon only on paying a fine of a hundred thousand
pounds, and on distinctly acknowledging the King as the Supreme Head of
the Church of England. Chapuys's correspondence explained the motives of
the Government in extorting the confession; and justified the arbitrary
use whic